Effective Community Communication

Recently during the discussion of organising demonstration sessions for the residents organisations on garbage enzyme making, someone alerted me that inviting the leadership of the residents organisations to attend and giving them a bin to do it might not be working. This recalled me the effectiveness of information dissemination avenue and mobilisation of residents to participate in the community development programmes through the leadership. More than often, it was discovered that the residents or people on the ground was not informed about any programme although it was disseminated earlier to the leadership. It exposed the weaknesses of community communication.

Many organisations assumed that the leadership will help in informing the grassroots on any happenings and bridging any responses to the authorities. However, many events shown that this avenue is not effective of getting message across. Many residents organisations do not have a proper communication mechanism. Some prefer to notify residents by sticking a notice on the notice board in the community centre, some like to get the committee members to notify their immediate neighbours, some might use the newsletter to inform any happenings, some might take the initiative to send fl yer to every household, some might hang up a banner at the strategic location, some might post the news on the website and many might just keep it within himself.

Residents are not forthcoming for any activities if the activities are not of interest to him/her. People tend to wake up only if a controversial issue is warrant his attention. For example, a proposed high rise building in the neighbourhood will get a lot of attention and participation compared to the launching of a cleanliness campaign. Hence, some people have suggested that in order to get good participation for community development programmes, perhaps innovative marketing and/or sensationalise the matter can be of help. For example, organising the children events with the element of competition as many parent is having the "kiasu" mentality and wanting their children to be recognised academically or co-curriculum. Of course, most of the time providing free "makan" will attract many participants, even though some of them are not the immediate stakeholders.

Having said this, effective community communication requires strong leadership from the organisations and sense of ownership from the residents. I believe if the residents feel strongly about their living environment and neighbours, they will try to reach out and participate in any events by all means. Thereby, creating community spirit is critical and important. Meanwhile, MBPJ should change the communication strategy of informing people and expecting people to participate syndrome. MBPJ must be more pro-active in engaging the people. Perhaps calling scheduled and open town hall meeting, sending the van with announcement function to go round the neighbourhood for information dissemination, allowing officers to have a chit-chat teh tarik sessions with the residents, setting up the mobile service counter at the pasar malam or pasar pagi is not a bad idea.